I recognize the physical gifts as much as anyone else. The guy has a nice NBA frame for a 2/3. The D can be solid given this frame and his athleticism and usually does a decent job shutting his guy down. That being said, after 2 years in the league, I don't see much of anything to indicate that this guy is going to be anything more than an average NBA player. 1.) He can't shoot. 2.) I don't see any point guard instincts. 3.) He does not attack the rim. 4.) I don't see any type of "killer instinct" out of the guy. Maybe I'm missing something. I'm just not very high on the guy. I guess he can improve in some of the above... but the skills just don't seem to be there.
He did OK after he got time last year, but I tend to agree. With Deng anchored at the three I don't see him as a starter. As a sixth man, sure, if we can keep Gordon and trade Nocioni too. That's a nice thing to have as well, but it's not out of the world or anything. It's backup QB syndrome applied to basketball.
I would add two more reasons: 1). Fans seem to universally over-estimate young unproven players with unusual characteristics over good players who are older but with more defined limitations. 2). Intellectually, it's more aesthetically pleasing to have players who more neatly fit into a position than one's who don't. There's a bias towards things that conform to our expectations of how positions ought to be played. I fell into this trap after the Jalen Rose trade. With Jamal, E-rob, Jalen, Tyson and Eddy, we had players who seemed like they were physically ideal for their positions, even if they weren't very good. Personally I think the 'trade Kirk, Ben, Noc, etc so we can build with Rose, Thabo, Tyrus and Noah crowd' are nuts. I think there's a good chance that none of those guys will be as good next year (or maybe in the year after) as Kirk and Ben were in their rookie seasons. Never the less, I see those sentiments popping up more and more often.
Thabo's unusual characteristic is what? Being Swiss? I fall for guys that are good passers. I thought Jamal and Jalen were pretty good to go, not so much on ERob and our salad tong handed centers. Though they had other endearing qualities. I agree that Kirk would be unwise to trade away this year. When the summer first started out I was pretty sure he was the better fit next to Rose because he was "bigger" than Ben and could help ease Rose along during what I expect to be a tough rookie run. After looking in a lot more detail, I think both Ben and Kirk are important to have with Rose. Kirk's not really any "bigger" than Ben, and I think defensively there's a lot less difference than people think. But I think Kirk still brings value in his superior ability to run the point. I think Ben is pretty much an ideal SG to play with Rose and Deng. Rose will really thrive with a great shooter who actually commands defensive respect and double teams (as opposed to a great shooter like Jason Kapono who gets shots by being open when other players draw double teams). No, he's not a great defender, but in three of his four seasons here I didn't see his defense as a liability. I don't think we're any worse off with him than with Ray Allen or Rip Hamilton. And oh yeah, those other guys aren't available. Without Ben we'd be playing Kirk/Thabo/Larry, none of whom I see as bringing much to the table offensively to complement Rose (at least as a full time guy). Nocioni is another story. I don't see how he brings much value to us any more with Gooden in the fold and Thabo doing a fairly ok job in the second half of last year. If it's me, I wouldn't have re-signed him in the first place. I'm still not super happy with what I see up front. I like Noah but I don't think we'll do great with a second year guy who's kind of skinny. I spose we really need to roll the dice with Tyrus and hope he gets his head out of his ass.
I think Thabo's unusual characteristics would be his height and wingspan combined with his supposed guard-like ballhandling skills. People saw him as the big PG complement to Ben Gordon that would "fix everything." If I were Pax, I would be looking to deal Hinrich to Golden State for Al Harrington. I disagree that we need Hinrich because of his PG abilities - let's sink or swim with Rose, and while Rose sits, a Gordon/Hughes backcourt works nice enough. Harrington's contract expires at the same time as Hughes', in time for the summer of 2010. The downside of Harrington is he's another tweener kind of F, but if you liked what you saw of Brother Abe last year, you're getting a guy you're also going to like. I'd be happy with this rotation: G: Rose/Gordon/Hughes/Thabo SF: Deng/Nocioni/Thabo PF: Harrington/Thomas/Nocioni C: Gooden/Noah/Gray Regarding Nocioni... When we first got him, he was clearly a SF and competed with Deng for minutes. He actually played his best for us after he was put at the PF position. Last season, it looked to me like he played SF and a lot more SG than we would have liked, and he essentially turned into a 3pt shooter. Barring something like the Hinrich trade I suggested, maybe we should consider playing Noc at PF quite a bit this year.
Yes, but whenever people talk about Ben's defense vs. Kirk's defense, I seldom see them mention that during Gordon's four years as a Bull, Skiles and Boylan have relegated him almost exclusively to guarding point guards. They've obviously felt that Hinrich and even the shorter Duhon have a better chance at holding down bigger guards. I haven't really seen Ben tangle with enough shooting guards to know if he can really defend the bigger players day in day out for 30-plus minutes.
In all honesty, I think Thabo's foreign-ness adds to his mystique. Other than that, I think his combination of size, length, and ball-handling skills are his unique traits. I'm not sure how I feel about either of Ben or Kirk paired with Rose. All by himself, I think Kirk is better suited to play with Rose than Ben is. Regardless of their similarities in size, Kirk is a better defender than Ben is, at both the one and the two. He's not the scorer or shooter that Ben is, but he's good enough that he will benefit Derrick Rose. I sort of feel the same way about Ben, but I worry about his need to have the ball in his hands. That seems to be when he's best, and if he's delegated to working off the ball, I'd be worried that we'd see him standing in the corner waiting to shoot threes while Rose is on the floor. I also think a Rose/BG backcourt would have defensive problems. I'm in the minority on this, but I think Kirk's contract is fine. He had an off year, but so did the rest of the team. Going forward, the terms of his contract still seem fine for someone of his age and production. I also think he's the type of player who is probably more valued by GM's and head coaches than the press or fans, sort of like Shane Battier. I agree with Noc. He's a good player, but I don't see how his skills and pay fit on our team.
In a vacuum, Kirk's contract is not horrible. If it costs us Ben to keep Kirk because his contract leaves less room to pay Ben's asking price, then you have to question the cost of paying Kirk. Kirk's had several games where he's taken over a Q4, but the number pales in comparison to what Gordon's done over the years. So he CAN, but will he do it enough if Gordon's gone? I'm not getting good vibes off that.
I've yet to see Thabo display much in the way of real PG skills in a game. In fact, I've seen him turn the ball over pretty frequently. I'm thinking that his ball handling was pretty oversold. It's nice for a swingman, but I don't know how useful it is. I do wonder how Ben will move off the ball. I tend to think he'll be fine, but it's possible to see why he won't. Of course, up until last year I thought all was fine in that regard, so I tend to think they were all standing around due to the general breakdown of the offense and uselessness of the coaching last year. On Kirk, I read he's bulked up to 205lbs (no link, just a rumor guy), which actually sort of bothers me. He looked a little chunkier and definitely a step slower last year already. I think I'd rather have him skinny and quick.
Thabo can dribble OK, but he does not create for others. A lot of 2s and 3s are the same way. Agreed on Hinrich as well. He was markedly slower last season and the weight seemed to be a factor to me. More weight? Not good. People were initially happy regarding the additional weight since Kirk would always wear down as the season progressed, but I don't see it as a plus at all after last year.
Because we traded up to get him! I am in the "trade Kirk and Nocioni" camp. Kirk probably needs to be traded for any real chance we have at keeping Gordon. I can't see us paying Kirk 10M, Gordon 8-9M, Hughes 12M, and have Rose and Thabo on the roster. We already have a glut there.... now we'd have an expensive glut. I think its going to be hard to replace Gordon's scoring... no one else is really capable of doing what Gordon does when he is on. And we do need that. I agree with Denny; let's sink or swim with Rose. We aren't ready to compete yet anyway; may as well get Rose adjusted quickly.
I'm with you. The odd man out in my mind should be Hinrich. A Duhon type would be fine as backup PG and go with Hughes / Gordon at the 2. The salaries are infuriating, IMO, especially since Gordon is the best of that bunch. Hinrich's deal gets rubber stamped. We trade for Hughes. Now its time to re-up Gordon and there is no room at the inn. If those two guys were better than Gordon I could deal with it... but that's not the case. And he's the only one who can score efficiently. And they say the knock on Rose is his J. Grrrr.
I agree that Thabo's playmaking abilities are oversold, and that they always have been. That said, people still seem to be infatuated with them, which is what I was getting at. I think I agree with you on Ben Gordon's offense blending with Derrick Rose's. He's decent moving off the ball, but I think he'll always be better creating off the dribble, and when he plays like that, he seems to be most comfortable dominating the ball. I also think Gordon's an elite shooter....on the level of Ray Allen or Steve Nash, which shouldn't be discounted. I don't feel comfortable with Kirk putting on more weight. My guess is that when Rose got drafted, he figured his best way of staying useful was as a SG, so he got as big as he could. I was optimistic that he would regain his form this year, now not so much. I think players often lose their shooting touch once they bulk up, since your stroke is pretty delicate, and the extra weight in different parts of your body can throw off your mechanics just enough to mess things up, especially since there's nothing that quite replicates shooting in games like shooting in games. I'm not sure there's anything that could've been done with Kirk's contract. At the time, it would have been foolish to let him walk, and I can't imagine him signing for any cheaper than he did, considering his age, production, and role on the team at the time. I think the real problem is that without any ability to dance with the luxury tax, the only way to be a contender is with a black swan; and even then your luck only lasts so long before you either have to go above it or break things up. Building incrementally like Pax did is kind of paradoxical, since your success almost guarantees your failure since there's no chance of being able to retain the players you've drafted and developed, assuming you were successful in doing so.
I agree that Kirk's contract wasn't all that bad, and still isn't. Except that LT thing. Still, I think there's a middle ground between incremental and going for a Krause-style full-blown tanking mode. It's not just the luxury tax (as applied by Jerry Reinsdorf) that means you can't retain everyone, it's bad decision-making. We wouldn't have this discussion about Gordon if we hadn't made a series of huge mistakes leading up to this point. The Bulls, as I see it, switched boats in mid-stream when Wallace became available. If you're going to build incrementally, you need to retain your guys and retain the means to pay them. If you're going to open up a relatively short window of opportunity at a contender (both financially and age-wise) by signing a big FA, then you better go whole hog and make the most of that opportunity. The Bulls took a half-way approach to both and got nowhere. As a general rule though, I'd say staying on a mostly incremental path could have worked. I'd put the strategy as pretty straightforward. 1. Above all, avoid dead money (Larry Hughes is our latest incarnation of dead money, even if he's still on the active roster). 2. Keep good players but recognize your financial limitations and spend to keep players who will stay on the court (From that perspective it made a lot of sense to retain Kirk. But with Rose in the fold, we want to start looking to move him as soon as the all-star break. It didn't make a lot of sense to retain Noc - at his price- since he didn't project as a big minute guy with Deng, Smith, Thomas, Thabo aboard). If we'd simply followed that course last summer, we'd be OK resigning Gordon. 3. Try to find ways to get lucky (buying a lottery pick for Deng, getting lucky with the Curry trade, getting lucky with Rose). 3.
